42 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



across country, I got into a sporting set, including some dis- 

 sipated low-minded young men. We used often to dine 

 together in the evening, though these dinners often included 

 men of a higher stamp, and we sometimes drank too much, 

 with jolly singing and playing at cards afterwards. I know 

 that I ought to feel ashamed of days and evenings thus spent, 

 but as some of my friends were very pleasant, and we were 

 all in the highest spirits, I cannot help looking back to these 

 times with much pleasure. 



But I am glad to think that I had many other friends of a 

 widely different nature. I was very intimate with Whitley,* 

 who was afterwards Senior Wrangler, and we used continu- 

 ally to take long walks together. He inoculated me with a 

 taste for pictures and good engravings, of which I bought 

 some. I frequently went to the Fitzwiiliam Gallery, and my 

 taste must have been fairly good, for I certainly admired the 

 best pictures, which I discussed with the old curator. I read 

 also with much interest Sir Joshua Reynolds' book. This 

 taste, though not natural to me, lasted for several years, and 

 many of the pictures in the National Gallery in London gave 

 me much pleasure ; that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in 

 me a sense of sublimity. 



I also got into a musical set, I believe by means of my 

 warm-hearted friend, Herbert, f who took a high wrangler's 

 degree. From associating with these men, and hearing them 

 play, I acquired a strong taste for music, and used very often 

 to time my walks so as to hear on week days the anthem in 

 King's College Chapel. This gave me intense pleasure, so 

 that my backbone would sometimes shiver. I am sure that 

 there was no affectation or mere imitation in this taste, for I 

 used generally to go by myself to King's College, and I some- 

 times hired the chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Never- 



* Rev. C. Whitley, Hon. Canon of Durham, formerly Reader in Natu> 

 ral Philosophy in Durham University. 



f The late John Maurice Herbert, County Court Judge of Cardiff and 

 the Monmouth Circuit. 



